Page:Wonder Book.djvu/166

 ‘Go away, children! I can’t be troubled with you now!’ cried the student, looking over his shoulder, with the pen between his fingers. ‘What in the world do you want here? I thought you were all in bed!’

‘Hear him, Periwinkle, trying to talk like a grown man!’ said Primrose. ‘And he seems to forget that I am now thirteen years old, and may sit up almost as late as I please. But, Cousin Eustace, you must put off your airs, and come with us to the drawing-room. The children have talked so much about your stories, that my father wishes to hear one of them, in order to judge whether they are likely to do any mischief.’

‘Poh, poh, Primrose!’ exclaimed the student, rather vexed. ‘I don’t believe I can tell one of my stories in the presence of grown people. Besides, your father is a classical scholar; not that I am much afraid of his scholarship, neither, for I doubt not it is as rusty as an old case-knife by this time. But then he will be sure to quarrel with the admirable nonsense that I put into these stories out of my own head, and which makes the great charm of the matter for children, like yourself. No man of fifty, who has read the classical myths in his youth, can possibly understand my merit as a reinventor and improver of them.’

‘All this may be very true,’ said Primrose, ‘but come you must! My father will not open his book, nor will mamma open the piano, till you have given us some of your nonsense, as you very correctly call it. So be a good boy, and come along.’

Whatever he might pretend, the student was rather glad than otherwise, on second thoughts, to catch at the opportunity of proving to Mr. Pringle what an excellent